Casinos and other forms of gaming comprise a growing multi-billion dollar industry that has experienced a marked shift over the past few decades from the use of fully mechanical gaming machines to electronic and microprocessor based gaming machines. In a typical gaming machine, such as a slot machine, video poker machine, video gaming terminal, or the like, a game play is first initiated through a player wager of money or credit, whereupon the gaming machine determines a game outcome, presents the game outcome to the player and then potentially grants an award of some type, including a monetary award, depending upon the game outcome. Although this process is generally true for both mechanical and electronic gaming machines, the electronic machines tend to be more popular with players and thus more lucrative for casinos for a number of reasons, such as increased game varieties, more attractive and dynamic video and audio presentations, and the ability to award larger jackpots. Other well-known attractive features of electronic gaming machines also exist from the perspective of casinos and other gaming operators. Most gaming machines currently in commercial use within casinos and other gaming environments are thus unsurprisingly of the electronic variety, with such electronic gaming machines comprising both traditional free standing machines and alternative gaming servers and terminals.
Electronic and microprocessor based gaming machines typically include a number of hardware and software components to provide a wide variety of game types and game playing capabilities, with such hardware and software components being generally well known in the art. A typical electronic gaming machine comprises a central processing unit (CPU) or master gaming controller (MGC), which is usually located in a main cabinet of the gaming machine, and which typically controls various combinations of hardware and software components, devices and peripherals that encourage game play, allow a player to play a game on the gaming machine and control payouts and other awards. Software components can include, for example, boot and initialization routines, various game play programs and subroutines, credit and payout routines, image and audio generation programs, various component modules and a random number generator, among others.
Exemplary hardware devices can include various inputs that accept money and/or credits into the gaming machine, such as bill validators, coin acceptors, card readers and ticket acceptors, as well as user inputs to determine a wager amount and initiate game play, such as keypads, buttons, levers, touch screens and the like. Other common hardware devices include payout components such as coin hoppers and ticket printers, as well as player tracking units. In addition, any given gaming machine will typically have any number of audio and video display components that can include, for example, various speakers, visual display panels, belly and top glasses, exterior cabinet artwork, lights, top box dioramas, and cathode ray tubes, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), flat panels and/or other similar video displays for displaying game play and other assorted information. Many of these peripheral components and devices are built into a main cabinet of the gaming machine itself or into items closely associated with the gaming machine, such as a top box, which usually sits atop the main cabinet.
One particular hardware device used in virtually all gaming machines is the internal meter, of which there are typically several in any given gaming machine. Such meters can be mechanical, electrical or electromechanical, and are used to track a variety of items associated with each gaming machine, many of which tend to be accounting type items. Many of these accounting type meters are typically adapted to count and record one or more accounting items in real-time, and many are highly regulated by various gaming jurisdictions and authorities. Such gaming jurisdictions and authorities typically prefer or demand that actual physical metering devices be present for auditing purposes at every gaming machine or terminal in service, and tend to restrict how electronic or processor based meters may be devised and implemented. Various communication protocols and other details for devising and implementing electronic meters and data files within a gaming device, as well as interfacing with or forwarding communications from such meters and files along a network can be found in, for example, commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,655,961 to Acres, et al.; 6,682,423 to Brosnan; 6,712,698 to Paulsen, et al.; 6,800,029 to Rowe, et al. and 6,804,763 to Stockdale, et al.; as well as U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/040,239 to LeMay, et al. and 10/246,373 to Hedrick, et al., with each of the foregoing seven references being incorporated herein in its entirety and for all purposes.
Specific examples of accounting meters can include, for instance, history meters, transaction meters, vended meters, bookkeeping meters, and credit meters, among others, one or more of which can be in the form of “hard” or permanent lifetime meters and/or “soft” or battery backed RAM type meters. One or more bookkeeping meters for a given gaming machine can include data on items, such as, for example, coins accepted, coin credits, bills accepted, bill credits, total in, total out, combined drop, and attendant payouts, among others. These meters can be permanently installed within a gaming machine, whereby such a “lifetime” meter cannot be removed from the machine and can only be read at the machine itself. In addition, one or more meters can also be installed such that they can be removed from the machine and replaced with a similar meter. In some instances, such a removable meter may duplicate the function or counting of a permanently installed lifetime meter.
Presently, many gaming systems within casinos and other gaming establishments require that various removable meters be collected from many or all gaming machines on the floor on a periodic basis. These removed meters are then stored in a central location for use by those involved in back office accounting, reconciliation and marketing functions. Such systems require that casino personnel make appointed rounds and physically remove and replace meters from many or all gaming machines in use. Such systems tend to be inconvenient in many regards, such as in the time lapse involved in generating official meter counts recordings, and the requirement of a significant use of manpower in order to collect, replace, store and retrieve information from these physically present meters. In addition, while many existing systems provide apparatuses and methods for transferring data from individual gaming machine meters to or along a communication interface or network, such data transfers are considered informal for purposes of true meter counts, since some form of check or reconciliation against official physical meters is usually eventually required.
Accordingly, there exists a desire for improved systems and methods for metering the monetary intake and output of gaming machines, and in particular for such systems and methods to involve more convenient systems and methods to track and record the official bookkeeping metering counts for active gaming machines on the floor of a casino or other gaming establishment.